OHMIGOSH. I’m here!! I’m still here, still breathing, and missing your beautiful faces. So sorry for the long, unexplained absence, and THANK YOU for all the sweet emails checking in on my little fam. We are all perfect, happy and nothing is wrong – except that I just can barely do two things at once, […]

I miss your sweet little faces! We are all still alive, happy, healthy and procrastinating on decorating our Christmas tree. Just like old times!

Please tell me there’s some kind of cool minimalism about putting up a live Christmas tree and then just… not decorating it… for a long time. It’s probably hipster, like a tiny house or a precariously high man-bun.

Together we can make this a thing.

The naked tree is the extent of what I’ve contributed to my children’s Christmas experience this year. I call it “Parenting to Keep Their Expectations Low.” You know, that way it doesn’t take much to thrill them.

We did one real, responsible Christmas activity so far: get photos taken!

Soooo maybe I’m supermom after all?

(Just go with it.)

OOOH GUESS WHAT ELSE!!!

We actually started and are going to finish a real-live home project. Actually a couple! Remember Weston’s room?

The one that had been on our “home goals” list pretty much every year? Except all we actually did in there was replace the crib with a mattress on the floor? Which doesn’t really count as doing anything, except maybe further training in keeping their expectations low?

That room.

I finally got inspired! And also sick of the lack of storage and function that regularly resulted in the searing pain of Legos drilling through the tender flesh on the bottom of my foot when I stepped on them!

Legend has it the most beautiful interior design results from your life flashing before your eyes as your bare foot closes down on the knife-sharp edges of a Lego Brick of Death.

We’re redoing everything! I’m going to tell you all about it, but probably in a couple weeks after all the Christmas craziness passes. It’s coming along really well (that is to say, I imagine it ending up well and so far it still has a chance of ending up like I’m picturing it in my head). Fingers crossed.

Tell me how you’ve been! I want to know everything! If we were together in real life, I’d be like your giant labrador when you get home from work: overeager, jumping all over you and staring into your eyes with intense lasers of emotion! (No crotch-sniffing though, promise.)

Allie: “I don’t paint anymore. I used to paint all the time and I really loved it.” Lon: “So, paint.”

By some miracle I can’t explain or remember, somehow I got Andy to watch that movie with me back when it first came out, and ever since then, “I don’t paint” has become a line we use for when we’ve stopped doing something awesome that we love, and it’s often pulled out and quoted melodramatically. Like if Andy hasn’t gotten to eat a certain kind of cheese in a while – “It’s been months since I’ve had that brie! I don’t paint anymore!” or how we haven’t played volleyball together lately (“We DON’T PAINT ANYMORE!!”).

I got to spend a precious alone-time hour at Homegoods recently, and as I was wandering around looking at the decorations and thinking about how I haven’t done a single thing in our house in months, I turned melodramatic on myself and was all “I DON’T PAINT!” as I touched the curtains and considered the throw pillows tearfully. “I used to paint all the time and I really loved it!”

I MISS YOU GUYS. I get painful, incurable itches to write, and to decorate, and to write about decorating, and when I can’t, it makes me want to strip down to nothing but a blanket and paint a picture on the front porch of a Southern plantation. Metaphorically.

(If you haven’t seen that movie, I’m sorry for the unfamiliar references, but let’s be honest: this is a problem I can’t solve for you. It’s not me, it’s you. #FixIt.)

You guys are the sweetest and I can’t tell you how much it means to me to get your notes just checking in on us! It’s like a salve to my thirsty little not-painting soul.

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

1. (Primarily): Working and trying to keep our heads above water.

We started a company together a couple years ago, and it’s been the coolest thing to watch it grow beyond not only what we expected, but also anything that we even remotely envisioned when we brainstormed the business name while spoon-feeding liquefied peas into our infant at dinner.

If you’ve ever tried the entrepreneur thing, can I get an exhausted fist-pump over how amazing but crazy and needy it is?

Also, we have two kids. Who keep getting bigger.

2. Parenting.

Weston and Mila have turned 5 and 3 and UGHHH. I just can’t with this age. I JUST CAN’T.

Before I had kids, I thought 3 years old would probably be the cutest age, and 5 years old would be the second-cutest, and then after that, it’s all downhill and they get gross and have stinky armpits and hate you until they’re 21.

Right this second, I have one child at each peak-cuteness age and I WAS RIGHT. I can’t handle my children because they’re hilarious and still have tiny little voices and IT’S ALL GOING TO BE OVER SOON AND THEN THEY’LL HATE ME! The cuteness level is at its PEAK and I’m stressed out all the time because I know this is IT.

Why do they do things like this to me? This drawing?! How am I supposed to handle this? True story: right at this very moment, I can hear Andy and the kids doing their bedtime prayers. This is Mila’s prayer: “Thank you for my mom. Thank you for my dad. Thank you for my bwudder. Thank you for my Mila. Thank you for my Jesus. Thank you for pee-peeing in the potty. Thank you for my sun and my sky. AYYY-MEN!”

See? It is so STRESSFUL how cute they are. It makes me want to send them back. I wish I could just push pause and make them stay 3 and 5 for all time, or have 14 more of them so there’s always SOMEONE in our house who is 3 and/or 5.

3. Celebrating 10 years

We’ve been married a whole decade! To celebrate our 10th anniversary, we rented a big house on the beach and invited some of our best friends to meet us there for a long weekend. We had a dinner by the pool at sunset, and then had a DJ for a dance party, which by the way is SO MUCH BETTER if it’s just a small group of people who will still talk to you even if you look like a dying duck when you dance.

It was the PERFECT way to celebrate 10 years!

4. Inserting Foot in Mouth

My bud Chelsea from Two Twenty One asked me to do a podcast/interview thing with her for a new series she’s doing, and y’all? I should not be allowed to just SAY THINGS with no option for editing it.

I accidentally spewed all kinds of stuff, like my most embarrassing moment and the reason why Andy would never have married me if we’d met a few years earlier, plus some super honest thoughts on what NOT to do when decorating. You can listen here. It’s a bit silly. If I’m being real.

5. Getting started on some projects!

I have a few half-finished things I’ve been working on and so more things are coming! I miss you guys! Tell me how you are. Tell me everything you’re thinking!

The post I don’t paint anymore. appeared first on * View Along the Way *.

You know what warm saltwater breezes, toasty sunshine and sandy feet do to me? They render me completely useless, a lifeless blob incapable of any motion beyond swaying in a hammock and digesting all the food with no signs of filling. That’s the closest I can get to a valid reason why it’s taken me […]

The post Post of Christmas Past: no excuses edition appeared first on * View Along the Way *.

So I know I’ve been posting approximately zero projects of late, but then some blog buds asked if I’d be up for having Andy answer some gossipy questions and I was all, “YES! Andy would LOOOVE to write a post!” HAHAHA. Kinda like how when you hear your friend needs help moving something heavy, you […]

The post So I Married a Creative…. Andy’s hard-hitting interview. appeared first on * View Along the Way *.

OHMIGOSH. I’m here!! I’m still here, still breathing, and missing your beautiful faces. So sorry for the long, unexplained absence, and THANK YOU for all the sweet emails checking in on my little fam. We are all perfect, happy and nothing is wrong – except that I just can barely do two things at once, […]

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